Vital partnerships

ACIAR has brought together Australian and Indonesian research and extension agencies, and the cocoa buyer Mars Incorporated, in a strong partnership with smallholder cocoa growers to encourage replanting with improved varieties and better crop management.

Professor Sixtus Gusli of Hassanuddin University, Makassar, South Sulawesi, says that in the research area in particular, collaboration with international institutions such as ACIAR is strengthening Indonesian institutions.

“Cocoa is a good example where we can demonstrate the need for collaboration, between Indonesian institutions and Australian institutions, between farmers and the traders, the exporters, and the industry in general," he says.

Partner Mars Incorporated, which is making a significant financial and in-kind contribution to the cocoa program, has a long-term commitment to improving the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the cocoa industry in Sulawesi.

Noel Janetski, President Director of Mars Symbioscience Indonesia, says cocoa production has the potential to continue making a substantial difference to the economic and social circumstances that face smallholder farmers in Sulawesi and eastern Indonesia generally, but considerable technical intervention and social awareness are needed to overcome the production constraints that have built up.

Mr Janetski says the complexity of the challenge means the only way forward is by working in partnership with others, so a spread of resources and expertise can be leveraged.

“When we start working with ACIAR in developing or adapting technologies, it provides a catalyst for others to start partnering to transfer those technologies and to involve farmers in the decision. It is laying down much stronger foundations for sustainable change, for the creation of a new, sustainable farming system.”

Dr Sahardi Mulia, head of BPTP South Sulawesi, the institutional link between research and grower adoption, says the ACIAR–Mars collaboration has been crucial in demonstrating to farmers the connection between improved cultivation and access to higher-value markets.

He says this has given much more impetus to resolving problems, such as the susceptibility of existing trees to cocoa pod borer, vascular-streak dieback (VSD) and pod rot disease. In particular he says the supply of new pest and disease-resistant genotypes and integrated management is reviving farmer confidence in cocoa.

He says knowledge of management practices, such as pruning and fertilising, plus the prospect of new pest and disease-resistant varieties, has shown farmers that, not only can they maintain their production, but improve it.

Cocoa farmer and head of a farmer group in the Luwu Utara district, Mr Pesianus Lesnusa, says the level of collaboration between the Indonesian agencies, Mars and ACIAR has given farmers in his area new confidence in their future.